


Junkland

by murg



Category: Original Work
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Gen, Implied/Referenced Cannibalism, Life Debt, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Nuclear War, Treasure Hunting, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:41:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28134837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/murg/pseuds/murg
Summary: The signs on the border of Junkland are faded beyond recognition. I’d have to imagine, if I could read them, they’d say something like “Warning: Big-Ass Spikes Ahead. Proceed With Caution.”Not that any sign is going to stop Alice and me. We're going treasure-hunting.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character
Kudos: 5





	Junkland

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to finish up some short stories. This is one of them. I'm still working on my longer stuff. Thanks so much for reading.

The signs on the border of Junkland are faded beyond recognition. I always assumed they were signs, at least. Thick poles with big, engraved marks on flat sheets of metal. I’d have to imagine, if I could read them, they’d say something like “Warning: Big-Ass Spikes Ahead. Proceed With Caution.”

Then again, nobody needs a sign to say the obvious. Giant spires of rusted steel and jagged granite poke out of the ground just four-hundred feet away, like the earth grew its own gnarled spines to keep intruders away. It sort of reminds me of a porcupine, I guess, its back poised to would-be encroachers. A coiled, passive threat. Usually, I think it looks like something more active, bared and ready to snap.

Not all of Junkland is like this, but the most interesting parts are.

“Alright, Banks.” Alice readjusts her backpack, flipping her knife open and shut. One of her more pointlessly dangerous tics. “This is the real deal. Jones only leased me this drill for two days and I don’t got enough on me to get it again anytime soon.”

“Roger,” I answer, shooting a glance at the heavy equipment sitting in the wheelbarrow. I’d pushed it, most of the way. It sucked. Alice had tried to justify it by talking about how ‘she bought it.’ She could have just said that I owed her and left it at that; that would have been fair. But no, she had to act like she had to justify herself to me.

She unfolds her map, smoothing along the creases. “We’re going to the usual dig sites. If we move quickly, we should be able to make good progress before we need to head back.”

“So we’re still splitting up?” I ask, even though I know the answer.

Alice snorts. “Gonna have to. At least until one of us finds something promising. I doubt that thing’s got enough juice for us to use it through the whole two days.”

“Great.” All that trouble and I’ll be spending the next two days sweating and cursing over my slightly warped shovel. But I knew that would be the answer. It’s reasonable. She’s nothing if not pragmatic.

Alice and I are on a treasure hunt of sorts. Nobody really goes into Junkland because the spikes are pretty large and, admittedly, pretty intimidating. The whole place just feels off. It looks like the ground itself wants us to stay out. We’re not stupid, though; some parts of this are clearly manmade. Metal doesn’t just get lodged into the ground like that. Not that I’ve ever seen, anyways. Somebody went through a lot of trouble to make a terrible view even more terrible. That’s why Alice is thoroughly convinced something valuable is hiding here. 

Probably underground. We’d ruled out above-ground on previous excursions. It’s possible it’s inside one of these protruding spikes, but we don’t have the resources to saw through steel. So underground it is. I still can’t believe Alice traded her bike to Jones for two days of that drill, but she’s determined to become rich. It’s her consuming obsession.

But still. Her bike. That’s a big deal.

“I take it I’ll be keeping the drill,” I say, because I know Alice isn’t going to lug that thing around. Which, like I said, fair. It’s the least I can do for her. I wish she’d just said I owed her instead of saying dumb shit.

“Yeah, but don’t use it. Use your damn shovel.”

“Jeez, I will. But it’s a pretty bad shovel.”

“I’ll get you a new one when we dig up all this gold or whatever the hell it is.” She flips her map to indicate at three circled locations. “Anyways, we’re here.” She pokes. “I need you to try out at your usual general area, today.” Pokes again. “We’ll meet up back at the entrance for dinner and camp. If you see something, just start yelling. I’ll do the same.”

“Sure thing.” I pick up the handles of the wheelbarrow. The spot Alice indicated is about half a mile out. The same dumb, big hole I’ve been sweating over for the past month. Great.

We’ve been to this place so many times. At least ten, probably fifteen. And it’s always terrible. I can map out Junkland behind my closed eyelids, and sometimes I do late at night when I’m stuck suffering through routine insomnia. The ridges of the earth, jagged needle teeth lined in the form of a highly detailed topography.

It always looks like the lower half of a predator’s jaw, wrenched from its skull.

\- - -

Junkland is a sweltering, shitty patch of desert mid-way between Ashtown and Craggy Way. Nobody stops here. All the trails and roads shy away from the place, preferring to take hours-long detours to avoid it.

I can’t blame them. It’s spooky. Even bugs and birds refuse to stick around, and those things eat corpses. There’s definitely something here, though I’m not as certain as Alice that it’s anything valuable. There’s some animal part of me that half-expects I’ll eventually dig too far and find hell on the other side.

It’s hard to articulate. I don’t want to bother, because it doesn’t make sense. Either way, this place radiates bad energy. No doubt.

What choice do I have, though? Alice saved my life back in Oniontown, so now I’m stuck with her. Took me off of Bad Jack and got me out of that shithole with only a shirt and boxers to my name. She didn’t have to do that. Needed a pack mule, she’d told me, but still. She didn’t need to do that. I really wasn’t worth the trouble. She could have just bought a guy to lift her shit like a normal person. Sometimes, Alice’s explanations don’t make any sense to me.

But there are much worse people to be stuck with. Alice is resourceful, shrewd, and much smarter than me. I’m not a logic person, like her. I’m more of a ‘feelings guy.’ Alice is intelligent, and that gives her a lot of power. Selling her bike for two days’ worth of a drill is questionable, though.

More than questionable.

Hey. It wasn’t my bike. I’m just the guy that pushes the wheelbarrow.

My shovel keeps knocking into large chunks of jagged rock, like pieces were blown apart and stuffed back under the dirt. It’s really frustrating, and I’m often bending down to throw them out of the hole by hand. And it’s a big hole, so sometimes I have to march half-way up to pick up the piece if I didn’t throw it far enough.

And one of those dumb, illegible signs stares back at me. This one has a little more color to it. It’s got text on it, but hell if I can read it. They’re alien hieroglyphics.

There’s something irritating about the whole thing. I guess it’s the drawing of a person with a scrunched-up face next to the presumable words; it looks like they need to take a shit.

Maybe I just hate it because I keep looking at it while I dig. And I’ve been digging this hole for a while. One month’s worth of shoveling. The trip out here isn’t easy--it’s a half-day’s worth of walking--and then I set up to dig in front of this audience.

What a miserable expression. Sometimes, I scrunch up my face back at it.

\- - -

By sundown, I’m so tired that I feel like all my joints have lockjaw. My fingers especially. They keep curling back into the exact position I held them on the shovel, knuckles snapping painfully when I try to engage in anything remotely dexterous. Like holding a granola bar.

Alice is already setting up her sleeping arrangements, fussing over the lump configuration in her backpack-turned-pillow.

I chew on my bar, jaw rotating mechanically, as I watch her. Alice is sinewy and serious in every motion, eyes and lips thin with concentration. It’s taken some time getting used to, but I think I like Alice. I mean, I don’t have much choice, considering that she saved my life. But outside of that, I do think I hold a specific fondness for her.

She flops onto the dirt, grimacing as she shifts her head on her backpack. “Are you done staring at me?”

“Not much else to stare at,” I murmur, taking another bite.

“Stare at the spikes or something,” she replies.

I’d rather not. “I guess I could stare at the sign.”

“Sign?”

I gesture lazily at the pole. “That thing. It’s a sign, right?”

Her dart to the metal sheet at the top. “I dunno. Probably. What’s it matter?”

“It doesn’t. Just something to stare at, I guess. There’s a lot of them, isn’t there?”

“Yeah. There’s lots of signs everywhere. Not exactly unusual.”

“Yeah, that’s true.” Alice is a lot smarter than me. I get too caught up in my emotions to think about things like that. There are signs all over the place, both faded and covered in alien lines. I’ve never seen a sign that looks like that constipated face watching me dig, though. Junkland creeps me out. I wish I had a level head like her.

“Go to bed, Banks.”

“Roger.” I stuff the remains of the granola bar into my mouth and pat at my backpack, lying down.

It’s nice, not having to keep watch all night. One of the few upsides of Junkland. Nobody comes here, so we don’t have to worry about our safety. I squirm on the ground until I’m in a more manageable position, back to the dirt.

Alice doesn’t make a sound. I know she isn’t asleep, though. Alice doesn’t sleep.

“I don’t think I’m making as much progress as I should,” I confess.

“It’s fine. We’re just doing our best.”

“Well, I know you’re counting on me to do a good job, so. I thought I should apologize.”

“I’m not your boss, don’t bother.”

“Then what are we?” I ask.

I hear her sigh. “We’re us.”

“Well, I feel like I owe you. So. I’m just trying to figure it out, still, I guess. ‘Us’ isn’t super enlightening.”

“Banks, you don’t owe me anything. Okay? Just stick around if you want to stick around.”

I don’t owe her. That’s a load of bull. Of course I owe her. I remember huddling against the wall in that stinking barroom, Alice walking through the door. I don’t remember what Bad Jack’s guys all talked about before, but they got strangely silent when she’d entered. And then they’d all argued. I don’t remember why. She’d flipped open her pocketknife and--

Well. Alice is strangely impulsive at times.

“You didn’t need to save me,” I say to the stars, adjusting my backpack under my neck.

“I didn’t save you,” she mumbles, turning onto her side.

“What else would you call that? He had me chained to a wall like some dancing bear.” The dirt is hard under my back. “Pretty sure he was gonna sell me to a meat farm.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t save you.”

“I was gonna die, though.”

“And now you’re digging holes in Junkland. Not much better.”

“Rather be here than naked in Bad Jack’s pub.”

She snorts. “Is that why you’re vegetarian?”

“Huh?”

“Because you thought he was gonna sell you for parts. Is that why you won’t eat meat?”

“Oh. I guess. But I didn’t really eat meat before that, either.” I shift, a rock digging into my shoulder. “Don’t like not knowing where it comes from.”

Alice doesn’t reply to that. Not that it’s necessarily worth a reply. She asked a question and I answered. That’s a complete dialogue.

Conversation with Alice is usually lackluster. Not that I’m super acquainted with good conversation, considering my history. Still. I don’t know what else she wants from me, if it’s not conversation and it’s not work. She took me off of Bad Jack, but she always says I can leave anytime I want. Not that I want to leave, necessarily, but. It’s confusing. I don’t know what a woman like Alice would want with a guy like me, if she’ll let me leave anytime. I like her a lot, but she’s so confusing.

“Alice?”

She grunts.

“Are we boyfriend and girlfriend?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“I dunno.” My fingers idly claw through the dirt. “Just wondering.”

“It sounds really immature when you call it that. ‘Boyfriend and girlfriend.’ You sound twelve.”

“Well, are we?”

“We’re us,” she says.

“I don’t know what that means.”

“It means what I said.”

I frown at the sky. Alice’s explanations never make any sense.

“Go to bed, Banks.”

I hum, staring into the darkness. It’s so clear, here. You can see the stars for forever.

The spikes tower over us, poised like fangs as they frame the night sky.

I close my eyes.

\- - -

Second--and last--day of digging. I wonder if Alice is cursing her impulsive streak. I haven’t found anything.

Even if she isn’t my boss or my girlfriend, I like Alice a lot and I owe her for helping me out. If I’ve got to dig up dubious treasure in some shitty spike-laden hellhole, then that’s what I’ll do.

I mean. Don’t get me wrong. This sucks. It’s the worst. But after a month, the blisters on my hands have mostly healed into callouses, so it doesn’t suck as much as it used to. Minus the issue that is the hole. Which is currently so large that I can’t throw those big rock chunks out. But I know I can’t have everything.

I just wish that stupid sign wasn’t so close.

My back hurts. Again. Didn’t even make it twenty minutes, this time. The dirt has just been getting worse and worse the further down I’ve dug, though.

(“You know, when I told you to dig around here, I didn’t expect you to simple dig one hole. You saw my site. I’ve been digging dozens. This thing is like a crater.”

I’d just shrugged at her, arms flopping at my sides.)

Hours like this are a special kind of torture, but it’s better than where I was, before. Even with my audience. I’d rather have a sign grimacing at me than Bad Jack and his customers slobbering over my naked legs. I’d rather have a shovel in my hands than a rope around my neck with a dangling tag. I knew it said something, but I never learned what.

Meat don’t need to read, Bad Jack had always told me.

It’s not important, Alice had replied when I’d asked her. She doesn’t answer many of my questions about Oniontown. I often wonder if she’s trying to spare me from some of the details. She seems to think I’m delicate. I wish I were. You don’t go through what I did and come out the other end delicate.

So yeah. I can dig for a while. Even if it hurts. Especially if it hurts.

All for the better if I can’t read that stupid sign scowling down at me. It probably says something like “Don’t Dig Here, Asshole.”

I dig harder, just to spite it.

The shovel clangs, vibrations running up my arms and shaking my bones. I grind my teeth in response, kicking at the dirt around the shovel.

Yeah, it’s just more of those big chunks of rock.

I kick at the dirt, trying to find the edge so I can pick it up and lob it halfway out of the hole like I’ve been doing the past two days.

Except that it keeps going. And going. I can’t get around it.

Well, not a chunk, then. Too flat to be boulder. If anything, it’s curving down. It’s like a big rock that’s had parts taken out of it.

I walk along it, kicking dirt out of the way as I try to find the end of it, but I just keep getting lower and lower, picking up chunks of rock and setting them to the side. The ground beneath me feels less and less solid the further I go. Like there’s a shift wherever I walk.

My eyes trail a long crack along, spiderwebbing out under my feet.

When I set a boot on it, something snaps. I quickly step away.

Nothing. Nothing I can see, at least.

My heart is beating really hard. I’m not a smart person like Alice, but this has got to be something. Right? This is something.

I swallow, leaning down to pick up my shovel. My eyes glance up, catching the high blue sky and that puckered face grimacing down at me.

When I slam my shovel down, chips fly up.

Right, this is definitely something. This is a huge boulder, but it’s all cracked up like this. Like something huge hit it, once. Have I been digging through this thing the whole time? That’s nuts.

When I step on the shovel, it breaks through.

I stumble forward, barely saving myself from face-planting into the stone. “What the fuck?”

The air is still. As still as it always is in Junkland. My eyes lock on the dark sliver between the shovel and the cracked rock. It’s a hole.

A... A hole. As in, there’s space underneath.

I stare at the gray rock, gaping. Rocks don’t have holes in them. Not that I know of. Unless it’s a cave. Is this a cave? Did I find a cave? Under some huge block of rock? It’s light gray. Isn’t that limestone? I heard limestone is kinda light gray, but--

This isn’t a rock.

It’s concrete.

Holy shit.

This is a building. Or something like a building. Buried way under the dirt in Junkland, of all places.

I wriggle my shovel and the deep crack opens further, dust and dirt grumbling as it drops into the hole.

I squint. The air smells stale and dry, wafting up from the space. It smells like old air.

It’s actually pretty short work. The more that’s removed, the more that crumbles away.

Giant metal casks sit below the barrier. Legions of them, all neatly lined up like soldiers.

I stumble down the debris of crumbled concrete, boot knocking against a barrel. It makes a muted, hollow sound at the contact.

I lean down, drumming my knuckles against the surface. Steel. There’s a reverberation, but not nearly as much as one would expect in a barrel this size if it were totally empty. There’s something in this thing. I stand up, knees creaking, and take a few steps back up the incline. Excitement buzzes in my stomach, aimless and eager.

Whatever they are, somebody went through a lot of trouble to bury this shit. Especially out here, in Junkland. Alice was right. She was totally right about this, about everything. That damn drill is actually gonna be worth something. More than her bike, definitely.

“Hey, Alice,” I call, a smile creeping across my cheeks. “I think we hit the jackpot.”


End file.
